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Welp, That Weekend Happy Didn't Last Long
May. 16th, 2022 11:44 pmGuess whose coworker tested positive for COVID? Saw the message this morning, and of course got the self-test out -- fortunately negative. Long weekend might have helped in that regard, honestly. But yeah, that was a kick in the teeth to get just before breakfast, let me tell you. *heavy sigh* Obviously hopefully coworker recovers without any complications -- we'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime. . .
Work – Well, since my coworker is out for the week with COVID, yeah, wasn’t exactly the greatest day at work. Especially since, given I was out Friday, I had all this other catching up to do. . .I just put my head down and plowed through what I could while also taking all my breaks – some questions waiting for me in the inbox, the GL, a couple of credit card calls, a big gift that came through from my boss later, and some quality control files. Oh, and a literal cash gift. *rolls eyes* Tomorrow, focus will be on putting on checks and other gifts that I couldn’t get to today, I think. We’ll see how the week goes from here!
Beanbags – Despite the weather app on my work computer constantly threatening rain, it was still nice and sunny by the time I got home, so we were able to play a few rounds once I’d changed. Had a nice come-from-behind victory in the first round, bu then sputtered out – final scores were me W-3-3; Dad 3-W-2; Mom 2-2-W. Hey, we all won one, at least!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike again tonight, and onto the next Oxventure, “Bone 2 Pick,” the direct sequel to the last one! Said last one involved the skeletons getting the Oxventurers to swap places with them temporarily and see what their job is like – but, as Johnny explained at the beginning of this half of the Oxventure, that was also a trick to bind them to the hammer so that they’d be obligated to help the skeletons refresh the blood ritual on them, otherwise they ALL get sucked into the hammer and explode. (I apparently misinterpreted at least a little of what they said at the end of the previous episode, but I suspect others did too – hence the refresher.) The Oxventurers, of course, were keen on not exploding, so after some banter about what “in media res” means (Johnny apparently thought for a second the stream’s quality wasn’t good enough to start XD), they asked the skeletons what the ritual entailed. The skeletons explained that they had to go back to Bumble, where the hammer was originally found, go into the crypt of the great builder Ethelfrit, and summon him to renew the blessing on the hammer. The skeletons didn’t think that getting the blessing would be a problem – they have a good working relationship with the guy – but the Oxventurers saw an immediate snag. Namely, after all the shenanigans with the skeletons the FIRST time around, culminating in the skeleton death match, the citizens of Bumble ran them out of town. So getting back in might be a bit of an issue. Dob immediately suggested they bring a nice gift, like loads of honey, which evolved to them dressing up like bee people – “beeple,” if you will. Which then evolved into making jokes about becoming the rock band The Beeples to infiltrate the village. XD Along the way, sneaking in during the dead of the night and zip-lining in were also mentioned, and Egbert IMMEDIATELY latched onto the latter and refused to consider any other way of ingress. XD They eventually decided to scout the town out first and asked the skeletons to take them to a tall hill outside of Bumble – the skeletons agreed, and everyone hopped back in the hammer for the trip. Seal Gaiman had made himself a little hammock fortress in their absence, and Dob and Corazon played another game of billiards – which ended in absolute disaster for Corazon, as he rolled a four against Dob’s twenty-five. Dob basically potted every ball in one clean stroke before Corazon could even chalk his cue. XD This happened while everyone was distracted by Seal Gaiman, though, so Corazon quickly pretended they hadn’t played yet and that Dob had forfeited. XD (Not that I think anyone really bought it. . .)
Anyway, they were ejected from the hammer atop a hill, as requested (I guess the skeletons decided to be a bit nice because, well, lives and unlives on the line) – and were stunned to see that Bumble, in their absence, had turned into a LITERAL FORTRESS. Guards patrolling high walls, a drawbridge with a portcullis, the lot. Corazon grabbed the spyglass for a better look, and a good roll allowed him to spot wanted posters along the walls, proclaiming those on them to be fakes and frauds to be shot on sight – and yes, while Corazon had trouble making out details, at least one face was green (like a half-orc) and one was red (like a tiefling), meaning it was probably the Oxventurers everyone was being warned against. Corazon reported on this, and the question of how to get in was raised anew. Merilwen brought up that she had a new spell specifically designed to keep everyone hidden damn near perfectly within a thirty-foot radius of her for an hour and that they could use it to easily sneak in, which Prudence liked – but Egbert had his heart set on zip-lining, and Dob would not let go of his classic bee rock band idea. It was eventually agreed that Merilwen would shoot a zip line with her bow and arrow (which she did easily, lodging it in the roof of one of the higher houses near the wall) and then do her spell, while Egbert, Dob, and Corazon would dress up as The Beeples/Bee-tles as a sort of “back-up plan” if the invisibility chose a bad time to conk out (Prudence refused to be a bee, but consented to posing as the tour manager).
Cue a good chunk of the livestream being everyone just making terrible bee-related puns about the Beatles’ songs and their names. Egbert (who rolled poorly and dressed up as a wasp with offensive markings on his chest) declared himself “Stingo Starr,” Corazon used Disguise Self to become “Paul McCartbee,” and Dob used some stuff grabbed from the hill and the fields to become “John Honey-and-Lennon” (which just cracked everyone up). Prudence decided she’d be Yoko Oh-No-Bees, and Merilwen – while not dressing up – suggested the name “George Harri-some-bees” for the missing member. XD There was also a great moment where Dob’s middling roll on his disguise led him to be tagged as the member of the band who would leave first due to creative differences or substance abuse, causing him to ruffle up his hair in a rather worrying way. XD
ANYWAY, with disguises in place and zip-line ready, Merilwen cast her “pass without trace” spell, then everyone clambered onto Egbert so they could zip-line down in a big group and thus stay hidden. Egbert passed the strength check to stay on the rope –
But Dob and Merilwen did not pass the strength check to stay on Egbert. In fact, Dob rolled a nat one, so it was determined that he just slipped off Egbert almost from the moment they got going – Corazon, clinging to him, was able to leap off and grab onto Egbert, but Merilwen was knocked free by Dob’s fall, and so they ended up in a heap on the ground, while their suddenly-very-visible friends were zip-lining toward the fortress. Corazon, in a bit of a panic, cut the rope and cast Feather Fall on himself, Egbert, and Prudence, allowing them to float gently to the ground, while Dob tried to grab the rope again, only to fall flat on his face thanks to said cutting. He and Merilwen managed to rapidly rejoin the others and get them back into cover, but naturally they’d been spotted by the group on the walls. The drawbridge was lowered and portcullis lifted long enough to permit three riders to go out and start searching for the gang. Merilwen was all for just moving, but I ended on Egbert asking how close the riders were to them, making me wonder if he’s got some sort of weird plan. . .I mean, can’t go any worse than the last one? XD
2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – Alice has now officially met Strauss, and I’m officially in another story chunk where I have to look up various dialogue videos to stitch together a conversation between them. Because the regular Malkavian stuff doesn’t always do, and the LP I’m generally relying on, Helloween’s, had him get straight to the point about the plague instead of asking about the Chantry and whatnot, which is what I wanted Alice to do. But the plague is actually coming up very shortly in their convo. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – ran a little late thanks to writing running late and various distracting things, but I did get both videos plus a bonus –
A) Started with a video I saw the other day and slapped in the Watch Later: “💚 HOW TO MAKE THE SIMS 4 MORE FUN *WITHOUT* MODS | The Sims 4 Gameplay Ideas,” by someone named Plumbie! (No, it’s not an alternate Plumbella account – someone entirely different.) Her ideas ranged from “give your Sims regular makeovers to keep their styles fresh” to “don’t rush your gameplay, especially relationships,” to “make sure to use lots of cool lots from the Gallery to spice up your worlds!” Which – I can definitely attest to the latter being effective! XD Just a bunch of little ways to keep yourself engaged with your Sims, which is basically all we want from the game.
B) Then it was over to the Subs themselves for Call Me Kevin and “The most expensive games on steam are all scams” – another look at random games on Steam, this time with the highest price tags Kevin can afford! (Don’t worry, he initiated refunds on all of them once he was done.) In order, we had:
The Island of Dr. Yepstein – 170 euros, an absolutely TERRIBLE first-person shooter set in the jungles of a very square island (or possibly Iraq, if you believe your clearly-a-computer-voice buddy), where you have to hook up 5g towers for – plot reasons. The assets for stuff like how you move are still all watermarked, the enemies are all copy-pasted ladies who have very weird physics when you kill them, the 3-D assets in the game are jank (one particular instance Kevin pointed out was the stairs not even lining up properly on a certain tower), and the credits even openly admitted there was no quality assurance. Sheesh!
Pif-Paf – 110 euros, a rather middling “voice shooter” – one of those “you’re a lone ship against waves and waves of enemies,” but you shoot by making noises. But you have to make the RIGHT noises, as Kevin found out whenever he tried to shoot faster than his normal talking voice. The wrong sort of “bang,” and it was game over. Arguably better than the first game, but not by much!
Earthquake Escape – 170 euros for something that barely qualifies as a game! It seems to be some sort of “educational” game about finding the right spots to hide in an earthquake. The game started out automatically in Japanese, and even when Kevin switched it over to English, he had no idea what to do. Even the incredibly obvious ! marks all over the level weren’t clear – Kevin won once crouching on top of one, but then lost crouching on another. Neither of us could make heads or tails out of it.
Super Fight – 170 euros got you a sidescrolling beat-em-up with one enemy type, two attacks, static picture backgrounds, and a single level that you could replay if you really wanted. Kevin did not really want to.
Marriedbook – 130 euros snagged you a “game” that was intended as a way to look up self-help exercises for engaged or newly-married couples. Kevin did NOT call Anna in for help on this – but then again, maybe it’s better he didn’t. Not only is the “game” SUPER loud, most of it is non-functional, with certain links leading straight to “404” pages, and Kevin discovering most of the content was hidden behind ANOTHER paywall, this one $150 USD thick. Kevin was NOT about to save his fictional marriage for THAT amount!
Run Thief – 170 euros, just a fairly terrible “always-running” game where you play as a woman collecting treasure and avoiding traps while running away from something chasing you. The game keeps switching to Russian whenever you pause it, and if you die, you get a Russian game-over screen without even seeing your pursuer. An actual game, yes, but not a good one.
Claus Adventures – an iffy platformer with an admittedly-neat CRT-TV effect over the screen to give it the feel of a classic 80s/90s game. However, the reviews call out the creators as asset-stealers, and the game itself?
400 FUCKIN’ EUROS. KEVIN ONLY GOT IT BECAUSE IT WAS ON SALE FOR HALF-OFF. Yikes. I think I’m gonna keep playing the same ancient games over and over, thanks!
C) And finally we had GrayStillPlays and Hyper Life – another weird mobile game where you play a young lady from birth to date, as represented by their slowly-aging sprite going down various multi-colored paths, picking up symbols representing money, intelligence, and either health or love, not sure which. You have choices to make on the regular, and your choices influence what happens – for example, kissing someone at their birthday party could earn you a schoolyard crush!
Gray being Gray, he of course had to make all the worst choices that would likely result in a person’s death. A lot of his babies didn’t make it to childhood thanks to doing things like eating soap or sticking their finger in an electrical socket. Even when he did manage to grow up, he often couldn’t resist the horrible choice, like swinging ultra-fast on a swing and then jumping off, or opening mysterious packages that prove to be bombs. XD He finally got serious on “king livesalot” and made it through a natural lifespan, picking up a partner, making reasonable life choices like taking up swimming as a sport, adopting a child in his old age, breaking up with his partner at the VERY LAST SECOND because King chose being alone over seeing the grandkids more, and died right afterward. XD Even when he does good, he does bad.
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A, and good thing too, as I barely had time to skim through my tumblr dashboard just now. I’m gonna blame the bad time management tonight on me needing to stop for gas coming home, which obviously made me a little late – that and the stress. And the long Kevin video which needed notes. Hopefully tomorrow I can do a little better getting it all in order.
Speaking of the bad time management, I gotta hit the sheets now. Gonna be a long week, that I can already tell. . .night all!
Work – Well, since my coworker is out for the week with COVID, yeah, wasn’t exactly the greatest day at work. Especially since, given I was out Friday, I had all this other catching up to do. . .I just put my head down and plowed through what I could while also taking all my breaks – some questions waiting for me in the inbox, the GL, a couple of credit card calls, a big gift that came through from my boss later, and some quality control files. Oh, and a literal cash gift. *rolls eyes* Tomorrow, focus will be on putting on checks and other gifts that I couldn’t get to today, I think. We’ll see how the week goes from here!
Beanbags – Despite the weather app on my work computer constantly threatening rain, it was still nice and sunny by the time I got home, so we were able to play a few rounds once I’d changed. Had a nice come-from-behind victory in the first round, bu then sputtered out – final scores were me W-3-3; Dad 3-W-2; Mom 2-2-W. Hey, we all won one, at least!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike again tonight, and onto the next Oxventure, “Bone 2 Pick,” the direct sequel to the last one! Said last one involved the skeletons getting the Oxventurers to swap places with them temporarily and see what their job is like – but, as Johnny explained at the beginning of this half of the Oxventure, that was also a trick to bind them to the hammer so that they’d be obligated to help the skeletons refresh the blood ritual on them, otherwise they ALL get sucked into the hammer and explode. (I apparently misinterpreted at least a little of what they said at the end of the previous episode, but I suspect others did too – hence the refresher.) The Oxventurers, of course, were keen on not exploding, so after some banter about what “in media res” means (Johnny apparently thought for a second the stream’s quality wasn’t good enough to start XD), they asked the skeletons what the ritual entailed. The skeletons explained that they had to go back to Bumble, where the hammer was originally found, go into the crypt of the great builder Ethelfrit, and summon him to renew the blessing on the hammer. The skeletons didn’t think that getting the blessing would be a problem – they have a good working relationship with the guy – but the Oxventurers saw an immediate snag. Namely, after all the shenanigans with the skeletons the FIRST time around, culminating in the skeleton death match, the citizens of Bumble ran them out of town. So getting back in might be a bit of an issue. Dob immediately suggested they bring a nice gift, like loads of honey, which evolved to them dressing up like bee people – “beeple,” if you will. Which then evolved into making jokes about becoming the rock band The Beeples to infiltrate the village. XD Along the way, sneaking in during the dead of the night and zip-lining in were also mentioned, and Egbert IMMEDIATELY latched onto the latter and refused to consider any other way of ingress. XD They eventually decided to scout the town out first and asked the skeletons to take them to a tall hill outside of Bumble – the skeletons agreed, and everyone hopped back in the hammer for the trip. Seal Gaiman had made himself a little hammock fortress in their absence, and Dob and Corazon played another game of billiards – which ended in absolute disaster for Corazon, as he rolled a four against Dob’s twenty-five. Dob basically potted every ball in one clean stroke before Corazon could even chalk his cue. XD This happened while everyone was distracted by Seal Gaiman, though, so Corazon quickly pretended they hadn’t played yet and that Dob had forfeited. XD (Not that I think anyone really bought it. . .)
Anyway, they were ejected from the hammer atop a hill, as requested (I guess the skeletons decided to be a bit nice because, well, lives and unlives on the line) – and were stunned to see that Bumble, in their absence, had turned into a LITERAL FORTRESS. Guards patrolling high walls, a drawbridge with a portcullis, the lot. Corazon grabbed the spyglass for a better look, and a good roll allowed him to spot wanted posters along the walls, proclaiming those on them to be fakes and frauds to be shot on sight – and yes, while Corazon had trouble making out details, at least one face was green (like a half-orc) and one was red (like a tiefling), meaning it was probably the Oxventurers everyone was being warned against. Corazon reported on this, and the question of how to get in was raised anew. Merilwen brought up that she had a new spell specifically designed to keep everyone hidden damn near perfectly within a thirty-foot radius of her for an hour and that they could use it to easily sneak in, which Prudence liked – but Egbert had his heart set on zip-lining, and Dob would not let go of his classic bee rock band idea. It was eventually agreed that Merilwen would shoot a zip line with her bow and arrow (which she did easily, lodging it in the roof of one of the higher houses near the wall) and then do her spell, while Egbert, Dob, and Corazon would dress up as The Beeples/Bee-tles as a sort of “back-up plan” if the invisibility chose a bad time to conk out (Prudence refused to be a bee, but consented to posing as the tour manager).
Cue a good chunk of the livestream being everyone just making terrible bee-related puns about the Beatles’ songs and their names. Egbert (who rolled poorly and dressed up as a wasp with offensive markings on his chest) declared himself “Stingo Starr,” Corazon used Disguise Self to become “Paul McCartbee,” and Dob used some stuff grabbed from the hill and the fields to become “John Honey-and-Lennon” (which just cracked everyone up). Prudence decided she’d be Yoko Oh-No-Bees, and Merilwen – while not dressing up – suggested the name “George Harri-some-bees” for the missing member. XD There was also a great moment where Dob’s middling roll on his disguise led him to be tagged as the member of the band who would leave first due to creative differences or substance abuse, causing him to ruffle up his hair in a rather worrying way. XD
ANYWAY, with disguises in place and zip-line ready, Merilwen cast her “pass without trace” spell, then everyone clambered onto Egbert so they could zip-line down in a big group and thus stay hidden. Egbert passed the strength check to stay on the rope –
But Dob and Merilwen did not pass the strength check to stay on Egbert. In fact, Dob rolled a nat one, so it was determined that he just slipped off Egbert almost from the moment they got going – Corazon, clinging to him, was able to leap off and grab onto Egbert, but Merilwen was knocked free by Dob’s fall, and so they ended up in a heap on the ground, while their suddenly-very-visible friends were zip-lining toward the fortress. Corazon, in a bit of a panic, cut the rope and cast Feather Fall on himself, Egbert, and Prudence, allowing them to float gently to the ground, while Dob tried to grab the rope again, only to fall flat on his face thanks to said cutting. He and Merilwen managed to rapidly rejoin the others and get them back into cover, but naturally they’d been spotted by the group on the walls. The drawbridge was lowered and portcullis lifted long enough to permit three riders to go out and start searching for the gang. Merilwen was all for just moving, but I ended on Egbert asking how close the riders were to them, making me wonder if he’s got some sort of weird plan. . .I mean, can’t go any worse than the last one? XD
2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – Alice has now officially met Strauss, and I’m officially in another story chunk where I have to look up various dialogue videos to stitch together a conversation between them. Because the regular Malkavian stuff doesn’t always do, and the LP I’m generally relying on, Helloween’s, had him get straight to the point about the plague instead of asking about the Chantry and whatnot, which is what I wanted Alice to do. But the plague is actually coming up very shortly in their convo. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – ran a little late thanks to writing running late and various distracting things, but I did get both videos plus a bonus –
A) Started with a video I saw the other day and slapped in the Watch Later: “💚 HOW TO MAKE THE SIMS 4 MORE FUN *WITHOUT* MODS | The Sims 4 Gameplay Ideas,” by someone named Plumbie! (No, it’s not an alternate Plumbella account – someone entirely different.) Her ideas ranged from “give your Sims regular makeovers to keep their styles fresh” to “don’t rush your gameplay, especially relationships,” to “make sure to use lots of cool lots from the Gallery to spice up your worlds!” Which – I can definitely attest to the latter being effective! XD Just a bunch of little ways to keep yourself engaged with your Sims, which is basically all we want from the game.
B) Then it was over to the Subs themselves for Call Me Kevin and “The most expensive games on steam are all scams” – another look at random games on Steam, this time with the highest price tags Kevin can afford! (Don’t worry, he initiated refunds on all of them once he was done.) In order, we had:
The Island of Dr. Yepstein – 170 euros, an absolutely TERRIBLE first-person shooter set in the jungles of a very square island (or possibly Iraq, if you believe your clearly-a-computer-voice buddy), where you have to hook up 5g towers for – plot reasons. The assets for stuff like how you move are still all watermarked, the enemies are all copy-pasted ladies who have very weird physics when you kill them, the 3-D assets in the game are jank (one particular instance Kevin pointed out was the stairs not even lining up properly on a certain tower), and the credits even openly admitted there was no quality assurance. Sheesh!
Pif-Paf – 110 euros, a rather middling “voice shooter” – one of those “you’re a lone ship against waves and waves of enemies,” but you shoot by making noises. But you have to make the RIGHT noises, as Kevin found out whenever he tried to shoot faster than his normal talking voice. The wrong sort of “bang,” and it was game over. Arguably better than the first game, but not by much!
Earthquake Escape – 170 euros for something that barely qualifies as a game! It seems to be some sort of “educational” game about finding the right spots to hide in an earthquake. The game started out automatically in Japanese, and even when Kevin switched it over to English, he had no idea what to do. Even the incredibly obvious ! marks all over the level weren’t clear – Kevin won once crouching on top of one, but then lost crouching on another. Neither of us could make heads or tails out of it.
Super Fight – 170 euros got you a sidescrolling beat-em-up with one enemy type, two attacks, static picture backgrounds, and a single level that you could replay if you really wanted. Kevin did not really want to.
Marriedbook – 130 euros snagged you a “game” that was intended as a way to look up self-help exercises for engaged or newly-married couples. Kevin did NOT call Anna in for help on this – but then again, maybe it’s better he didn’t. Not only is the “game” SUPER loud, most of it is non-functional, with certain links leading straight to “404” pages, and Kevin discovering most of the content was hidden behind ANOTHER paywall, this one $150 USD thick. Kevin was NOT about to save his fictional marriage for THAT amount!
Run Thief – 170 euros, just a fairly terrible “always-running” game where you play as a woman collecting treasure and avoiding traps while running away from something chasing you. The game keeps switching to Russian whenever you pause it, and if you die, you get a Russian game-over screen without even seeing your pursuer. An actual game, yes, but not a good one.
Claus Adventures – an iffy platformer with an admittedly-neat CRT-TV effect over the screen to give it the feel of a classic 80s/90s game. However, the reviews call out the creators as asset-stealers, and the game itself?
400 FUCKIN’ EUROS. KEVIN ONLY GOT IT BECAUSE IT WAS ON SALE FOR HALF-OFF. Yikes. I think I’m gonna keep playing the same ancient games over and over, thanks!
C) And finally we had GrayStillPlays and Hyper Life – another weird mobile game where you play a young lady from birth to date, as represented by their slowly-aging sprite going down various multi-colored paths, picking up symbols representing money, intelligence, and either health or love, not sure which. You have choices to make on the regular, and your choices influence what happens – for example, kissing someone at their birthday party could earn you a schoolyard crush!
Gray being Gray, he of course had to make all the worst choices that would likely result in a person’s death. A lot of his babies didn’t make it to childhood thanks to doing things like eating soap or sticking their finger in an electrical socket. Even when he did manage to grow up, he often couldn’t resist the horrible choice, like swinging ultra-fast on a swing and then jumping off, or opening mysterious packages that prove to be bombs. XD He finally got serious on “king livesalot” and made it through a natural lifespan, picking up a partner, making reasonable life choices like taking up swimming as a sport, adopting a child in his old age, breaking up with his partner at the VERY LAST SECOND because King chose being alone over seeing the grandkids more, and died right afterward. XD Even when he does good, he does bad.
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A, and good thing too, as I barely had time to skim through my tumblr dashboard just now. I’m gonna blame the bad time management tonight on me needing to stop for gas coming home, which obviously made me a little late – that and the stress. And the long Kevin video which needed notes. Hopefully tomorrow I can do a little better getting it all in order.
Speaking of the bad time management, I gotta hit the sheets now. Gonna be a long week, that I can already tell. . .night all!
